The invention relates to a method of determining the thickness of a sample. According to this method, a diffraction pattern image of a sample of a first material is obtained. Said diffraction pattern image comprises at least image values representative for the diffraction pattern obtained for said sample. A slope of said image values is then determined. The slope is compared to a relation between the thickness of said first material and the slope of image value of a corresponding diffraction pattern image of said first material. The determined slope and said relation are used to determine the thickness of said sample.

Methods and systems for acquiring transmission electron microscope video data on a rolling-shutter detector at an enhanced frame rate and without temporal distortions are described. Also described are methods to enhance the dynamic range of image and diffraction data acquired using a transmission electron microscope. The disclosed methods and systems may also be applicable to photon detection and imaging systems.

According to one embodiment, a holder includes a top member, a side member, and a bottom member. The top member has a hole for allowing transmission of a charged particle beam, and the sample is mountable in the hole. The bottom member is provided to overlap with the top member in a plan view. The side member is connected to a part of the top member and a part of the bottom member such that the top member and the bottom member are separated from each other in a cross-sectional view. An opening portion is a region surrounded by the top member, the side member, and the bottom member, and a scintillator is provided in the opening portion.

Disclosed is an apparatus and method for inspecting a sample. The apparatus includes: a sample holder, a multi beam charged particle generator for generating an array of primary charged particle beams, an electro-magnetic lens system for directing the array of primary charged particle beams into an array of separate focused primary charged particle beams on the sample, a multi-pixel photon detector arranged for detecting photons created by the focused primary charged particle beams when the primary charged particle beams impinge on the sample or after transmission of the primary charged particle beams through the sample, and an optical assembly for conveying photons created by at least two adjacent focused primary charged particle beams of the array of separate focused primary charged particle beams to distinct and/or separate pixels or groups of pixels of the multi-pixel photon detector.

A scanning electron microscope. The scanning electron microscope may include a sliding vacuum seal between the electron optical imaging system and the sample carrier with a first plate having a first aperture associated with the electron optical imaging system and resting against a second plate having a second aperture associated with the sample carrier. The first plate and/or the second plate includes a groove circumscribing the first and/or second aperture. The scanning electron microscope may include a detector movable relative to the electron beam. The scanning electron microscope may include a motion control unit for moving a sample carrier along a collision free path.

Systems, devices and methods for inspecting and imaging of contents of a volume is disclosed. One implementation of the disclosed systems, devices and methods includes an apparatus for inspecting and imaging of contents of a volume of interest which includes a first particle tracking unit of detectors to receive incoming charged particles that transit through an object and to measure position and direction of the charged particles that transit through the object while allowing the charged particles to pass through, and a second particle tracking unit of detectors installed relative to the first particle tracking unit of detectors and to the volume of interest containing the object of inspection so that it is positioned to receive the outgoing charged particles that transit through the first particle tracking unit and transit through the object of inspection and to measure a position and a direction of the outgoing charged particles. The apparatus also includes a processor that processes information from the first and second particle tracking units of detectors to yield an estimate of a spatial map of atomic number and a density of the object. The methods disclosed here include triggering algorithms for signal selection, positional calibration algorithms for locating particle tracking units in absolute three dimensional coordinate space, and three-dimensional tomographic image reconstruction algorithms combining the tracking information from multiple pairs of particle tracking units.

According to one embodiment, a holder includes a top member, a side member, and a bottom member. The top member has a hole for allowing transmission of a charged particle beam, and the sample is mountable in the hole. The bottom member is provided to overlap with the top member in a plan view. The side member is connected to a part of the top member and a part of the bottom member such that the top member and the bottom member are separated from each other in a cross-sectional view. An opening portion is a region surrounded by the top member, the side member, and the bottom member, and a scintillator is provided in the opening portion.

Methods and systems for examining a dynamic specimen using a Transmission Charged Particle Microscope are disclosed. An example method includes sparsifying a beam of charged particles to produce at detector an image of a sample comprising a distribution of sub-images that are mutually isolated from one another at least along an elected scan path, and using a scanning assembly to cause relative motion of said image and said detector along said scan path during a time interval t so as to smear out each sub-image into a detection streak on said detector, each such streak capturing temporal evolution of its associated sub-image during said time interval t.

A charged particle beam apparatus includes an irradiation system that supplies a converged charged particle beam to a sample and scans the sample with the charged particle beam, an imaging optical system that images the energy generated in the sample, a detection system that detects an image formed by the imaging optical system with an avalanche photodiode array, and a control unit that changes a pixel to be operated in a Geiger mode among pixels configuring the avalanche photodiode array according to movement of an irradiation range of the energy.

An electron sensor and a system with a plurality of electron sensors for electron microscopy using an electron microscope. More specifically, the electron microscope generates an electron beam that includes at least one electron that impacts on a lateral reception surface of said electron sensor and this generates an electrical charge of electron-hole (e-h) pairs that are detected and/or measured by at least electrodes linked to an electric circuit unit to form a high dynamic range image and measure the energy of the electrons impacting each pixel of the image.